Chernobyl, the wildlife paradise

I heard this was the case quite a while back now, which confirms my feeling that the main damage we cause is monoculture and habitat monopolisation. Read a short piece in the New Scientist here on how the area once devastated by nuclear powerplant malfunction looks now.

Basically, we clear out, other species thrive. Why on earth should we ever “go back to a natural way of life”? Stack us high – and neat – in geographically limited areas instead. That means cities. Make waste management and food production hyper-efficient – would multi-storey greenhouses work, for example? – and Stay Away from nature. Leave flora and fauna to do its own thing. We need nature, it doesn’t need us.

The best of the stuff people get up to in cities (high octane communication, art and cultural life, sophisticated sensory input and exchanges, etc.) can just about justify why there are so many of this particular species of near-hairless primate. Laughter is good, too. I struggle to see why we should be deemed magnificent enough to take up quite so much space and resources just for eating, sleeping and breeding. But laughing is good. And loving. And pleasure. And curiosity.